Regence Member Community reaches significant milestone: 50,000 reviews of doctors, hospitals and clinics

PORTLAND, Ore. – When Regence members look for a doctor, they turn to a trusted source – fellow members. In fact, Regence provides a member-focused Web site, myRegence.com, where members have just reached a huge milestone: 50,000 reviews of health care providers.

The physician survey includes numerical ratings and free-form comments. Members can rate their experience based on criteria such as time spent in the waiting room and ease of making appointments to ease of communication with their provider and overall satisfaction. To date, 89 percent of Regence members have indicated they would recommend their doctor to someone else.

“The Regence philosophy is about building healthier communities, and it starts with helping our members and their families make informed decisions about their health care,” said Torben Nielsen, Director of Marketing Systems and Consumer Product Development at Regence. “And making an informed decision when choosing a provider helps ensure a more effective doctor/patient relationship.”

Nielsen said Regence decided to give its members a forum to rate and review doctors so patients could hear what others have to say about their actual experiences with providers. In fact, every review is tied to a claim; ensuring members have actually seen the providers they review.

“Thanks to this review process, the entire Regence community can make smarter, better informed health care decisions,” Nielsen said.

Watch Regence members talk about the benefits of the member review program on the myRegence.com YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/myregence#p/u/0/jNXF2e-bT3w

myRegence.com is designed to help advise members on health care and lifestyle options, navigate them through the health care system, and reward those who make healthier choices. Through myRegence.com, members can find all their health and wellness related resources in one place. They can start to become more involved in their own health care through education, transparency of information and choice by discovering interactive tools to research treatment options, cost-quality comparisons of hospitals, wellness programs and activities and incentives for making healthy lifestyle choices.

About Regence

Regence is the largest health insurer in the Northwest / Intermountain Region, offering health, life and dental insurance. Regence serves nearly 2.5 million members as Regence BlueShield of Idaho, Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah and Regence BlueShield (selected counties in Washington). Each health plan is a nonprofit independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Regence is committed to improving the health of our members and our communities, and to transforming our health care system. For more information, please visit www.regence.com or follow us on Twitter.